1. Technical Field
Embodiments relate to a semiconductor apparatus, and more particularly, to a technique for testing a through-chip via and manufacturing the semiconductor apparatus based on the test result.
2. Related Art
In general, various package schemes have recently been proposed so as to highly integrate a semiconductor apparatus. Specifically, a chip stack scheme where a plurality of semiconductor chips are stacked one on top of another to constitute a single semiconductor apparatus uses a through-chip via so as to commonly transfer a signal to the plurality of semiconductor chips. In general, the through-chip via is referred to as a though-silicon via (TSV) because the semiconductor chip is generally manufactured with a silicon wafer.
In addition, the plurality of stacked semiconductor chips can be classified into a master chip and one or more slave chips. The master chip is configured to perform an operation for communicating a signal with the outside and controlling the slave chip. And, the one or more slave chips are each configured to perform a specific operation under the control of the master chip. For example, in case of the semiconductor memory apparatus, the master chip includes a peripheral circuit related to a control signal and an input/output operation of a signal, and the slave chip includes a memory bank configured to store data. For reference, such a circuit configuration assigned to the master chip and the slave chip can be varied according to needs.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a conventional semiconductor apparatus 1 where a plurality of semiconductor chips are stacked one on top of another.
Referring to FIG. 1, the semiconductor apparatus 1 comprises four semiconductor chips CHIP1, CHIP2, CHIP3 and CHIP4 which are stacked on a package substrate PKG SUB. A plurality of through-silicon vias (TSVs) are formed through each of the semiconductor chips CHIP1, CHIP2, CHIP3 and CHIP4, and each of the plurality of TSVs is coupled to the TSV of the adjacent semiconductor chip through a bump BUMP.
During a test process for the semiconductor apparatus, a test is performed to detect whether or not the TSV is defective. In general, the test is performed on the TSV after all of the plurality of semiconductor chips are stacked together. When a TSV in a specific one of the plurality of semiconductor chips is detected to be defective and judged to be irreparable, the plurality of stacked semiconductor chips are substantially unusable and needs to be discarded.